In the last few days there have been a number of news stories about how the police intend to respond to riots this summer. It seems that the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police are suddenly convinced that there are going to be riots, and they plan to respond quite harshly.

The Express announced on the 5th of May with a headling of “Water cannons on standby for summer riots” that the Home Office and the Met Police were holding talks about allowing the police to buy water cannon “in case disorder arises from protests planned for London before the G8 summit in Northern Ireland.”

Then on the 9th and 10th of May The Independent and The Telegraph published a story about the Home Office testing a “Discriminating Irritant Projectile” – a cartridge that is fired from a baton gun instead of “rubber bullets” that sprays CS gas or tear gas when it hits. This is the kind of weapon that we have seen being used against people in awful footage from repressive regimes like Egypt.

The BBC has reported that “An entire prison block at Maghaberry jail in Northern Ireland has been set aside to house protesters convicted of disorder at the G8 summit.” In the same article the NI justice minister told the BBC that they were also changing the law to allow people to be tried in places other than the usual court rooms so as to speed up dealing with people arrested at the summit.

Preparing for potential protests at the G8 summit does seem sensible, but the scale of this preparation is questionable. The acquisition of water cannon and new CS gas bullets by the Met is a whole new step in the war on the public. Combined with the massive jump in the use of Tasers by police (and non-firearms police at that) this is a very nasty shift against the safety of the public and against the right to protest. What jumps out to me about all these stories is that police and government have sought out the press to make a point of talking about the measures.

It is hard to tell what the intention of the government is by talking about all of this in public. It is likely that the intention is to intimidate people into staying away from the G8 summit and other protests. I wonder though, if by talking about riots as a certainty they want to provoke a protest so that they can brutally suppress it.

The announcement about preparations of jail cells and extra court capacity seems like an act of intimidation towards those people who intend to peacefully protest at the G8 summit – perhaps they are worried that a whole new segment of society will be protesting for the Enough Food For Everyone campaign. The announcements of water cannon and other measures with specific mention of protests in London preceding the G8 summit are even worse. Whatever they are scared of, these announcements are likely to put people off from exercising their right to protest, just as previous police violence has prevented thousands of people from protesting against welfare cuts and NHS privatisation over the last two years. I think that talk of these measures in the right-wing press like The Express and The Telegraph is designed to both intimidate potential protesters and to scare the readers of those papers into voting the Tories in again at the next election as “the party of law and order”. It’s a tried and tested formula for the Tories – when in doubt get violent towards the downtrodden and tell the scared electorate that you will protect them.

Hundreds of cyclists were arrested on Friday night after trying to take part in a Critical Mass event. Critical Mass takes place every month and has been going for eighteen years however on this occasion police clamped down heavily to prevent the cyclists from taking the intended route and the evening ended in serious violence and mass arrest.

In the first few seconds of this video British Transport Police Officer 4125 is shown grappling with a man in a Shopmobility scooter, and then aiming something at him. (Probably CS spray.) The man shouts several times “I am disabled” but is ignored. A police medic can be seen trying to wrestle him away and prevent him from using it. Further in at 1:06 he can be seen and heard striking someone with a baton.

Trying to use sprayBaton strike – the rebound

The person who uploaded the video has written this account:

27th July 2012 19:30pm In the early stages of the Monthly Critical mass Bike ride a British Transport Police Officer PepperSprayed a Disabled Man in a shoprider who had been apparently hit by a car along with several others. During the melee as the officer is pulling out the pepper spray , A fellow Female police medic attempts to stop the action, but is struck back and the officer sprays the Disabled man and most of us in the crowd, not satisfied, he then whips out his telescopic truncheon and trys to apply a wrist lock / neck Lock on the Disabled man using the truncheon. Eventually a real Police officer arrives with 3 vans and about 50 Backups. The disabled man is arrested and the British Transport Cop is led away by some other officers. 27th July 2012.

From earlier in the evening:

https://twitter.com/IzzyKoksal/status/228908475969830912

FIT recording Critical Mass. Photo by @IzzyKoksal

https://twitter.com/hrsyofgrmnghst/status/228909745216561154

https://twitter.com/ThereziaCooper/status/228912127216345088

https://twitter.com/BrixtonHatter/status/228912357668159488

https://twitter.com/IzzyKoksal/status/228961930855981056

View from inside @MetPoliceEvents kettle of #criticalmass. Photo by @OurOlympics

Today Brian Whelan woke up to find information from the Ministry of Defence waiting by his letter box.

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196248153358467073

The leaflet informed him that during the London 2012 Olympic games the army will be putting missiles on the roof of his building and there will be soldiers on duty there 24 hours a day. He was not asked about this in advance, or given a choice, simply informed that his building was the best place to site these missiles. From what Brian said it might not be the safest place for these missiles.

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196252056787496960

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196252151192883200

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196255102305181696

Even worse, it seems that there may already be military equipment in the building.

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196253355968970752

The missiles to be used are Ground Based Air Defence, High Velocity Missile (HVM) of the type shown in the picture below.

https://twitter.com/#!/brianwhelanhack/status/196251846749323266

GBAD HVM missiles of the type to be installed on Brian's roof. (Image of leaflet via Brian Whelan)

Leaving aside the lack of consultation about this and the failure to ask the residents, we get to the question of what good these missiles could actually do. Presumably these missiles are to guard against aircraft piloted or hijacked by terrorists which might be flown into Olympic venues 9/11 style. In the event that such an aircraft was identified, unless it was shot down over open ground the wreckage will fall directly onto London streets and buildings. These hardly look like long range missiles; they look like the target must be in visual range. (Correct me if I am wrong here.) We knew from previous announcements that there would be missiles on board ships in the Thames, but I certainly didn’t realise that there would be more dotted around London. I expected the missiles that had been mentioned to be of the sort that could be fired at a plane a bit further away where plummeting debris might not have such an awful effect. Use of these missiles to bring down a hijacked jet would simply move the devastation from the intended target to somewhere else in London. Then we must ask how the army will identify a target. What is the criteria? A plane that has wandered off course? A passenger jet that doesn’t answer a challenge by radio in time? A microlight with no radio? A news helicopter? The scope for mistakes here is huge and the resulting carnage would be awful. In my opinion, if the MOD intend these missiles to be used at all then they are incredibly stupid and thoughtless. If they are not intended to be use then they are highly dangerous security theatre with a massive scope to go wrong.

Blackheath has been awash with rumours that air defence missiles will be placed on the Heath to protect the capital during the Olympics.
To the credit of our Lewisham Councillors, security services personnel were brought in to give a briefing to the Blackheath Assembly on 13 March.

Blackheath is one of six sites being evaluated for a possible missile defence system for the duration of the Olympics and some radar equipment was tested on the Heath last week.

We understand that either all six will be chosen, or none. The Blackheath site is opposite Holly Hedge House, the police base for the Olympics. Oxleas Wood is another possible site.

There is already opposition to the missile deployment at Oxleas Wood, and their Facebook group has more information: No Missiles in Oxleas Woods!

Katie Draper is another person who has been informed today that there will be missiles sited on top of her home.

https://twitter.com/#!/Drapesmonkey/status/196162635249627136

https://twitter.com/#!/Drapesmonkey/status/196163724296470528

Soldiers on the streets of London

In reaction to the news that there would be 14,000 troops deployed in London during the Olympics as security personnel, I filed a Freedom Of Information request to find out whether these troops would be armed and what powers they would have. I recieved a reply from the Home Office so here it is.

Military personnel deployed as security staff to assist the Police or for logistical support will not routinely carry firearms and firearms will not be available to military personnel deployed as Security staff to assist the Police or to provide logistical support. Because of this, the question about ammunition is not applicable.

Military personnel do not have any powers of arrest above and beyond those of an ordinary citizen under common law. The MOD has tried and tested arrangements in place for providing military support to the Police and other civil authorities, which means it is possible that military personnel providing assistance to the Police may be deployed outside of areas where Olympic events take place.

It is interesting to note that the soldiers will not be armed and will not even have powers of arrest beyond those of the ordinary citizen. I am also alarmed to see that soldiers may be used outside of areas of London where the Olympic games are being held.

“If you know of people, including neighbours, who are going to break the law during the Olympics you should let the authorities know.”

He said protesters targeting the Games will be “letting down” Britain.

Mr Robertson said the right to peaceful protest was enshrined in English law but added: “If people get involved in illegal activity we expect the police to crack down straight away. This is an opportunity for us all to show the world the best of Britain and the last thing I want is that ruined by Occupy London protests or anything like that.”

Does this sound a little bit… familiar? Fear of informants among family, friends and neighbours is a characteristic of most totalitarian regimes. When the state is so authoritarian that everyone is guilty of some crime or another, everyone must fear being reported by everyone else, perhaps in return for some government favour or some hope of immunity. I note that Mr Robertson implies that any dissent, any protest should be reported, not just illegal behaviour.

General clampdown on protest

Before we go any further, it’s worth looking at what happened at the last big event. Prior to the royal wedding last year the police arrested people pre-emptively, people who only wished to protest in a perfectly legitimate way. Some of them merely had signs expressing their objection to the public spectacle. I suggest you read my blog post on this, The suppression of dissent. Protesters have often been intimidated by police in the past, and it has been happening a lot recently too. A protest in November last year was heavily intimidated in the days before with talk of rubber bullets and water cannon, and with letters sent to warn people away. In the end it wasn’t as bad as that, but the police effectively silenced the protest and kept it out of sight.

Protesters have routinely been kettled, including “hyper-kettling” and beaten with batons. Alfie Meadows was injured so badly by a police baton that he needed emergency brain surgery, yet he was charged with violent disorder instead of the police officer that did that to him. The Met deny responsibility even when innocent bystanders are unlawfully killed (murdered) such as in the case of Ian Tomlinson. Kettling has recently been found legal, although hyper-kettling was not considered in that judgement. We have seen armed police at protests recently. Austerity is causing massive dissent. NHS cuts, service cuts and closures, welfare cuts have all been controversial and provoked protest. Despite all this, most protests go unreported by the press unless there is violence.

I would expect peaceful protest around the Olympic games; something of that expense and magnitude and with so much corruption will of course be a focus of unhappiness from those who see what is happening. I think that it is highly likely that we will see pre-emptive arrests before the Olympic games, and in all likelihood it will be worse than those at the royal wedding. I seriously doubt that the police will care whether or not a planned protest was going to be peaceful and obedient or was going to break the law. In fact the last government already made arrangements to make even peaceful protest, a vital right, illegal around the Olympics.

Olympic Security

It is the security operation around the games themselves that worry me though. The Met police have been acquiring new toys recently. Water cannon are still a possibility, but these CBRN barriers will certainly be used.

CBRN stands for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear. That’s right, the police are so scared about rebellion that they are using steel cordons designed for use around nuclear accidents and incidents of a similar level. Pretty intimidating, don’t you think? They have also acquired these nifty watchtowers:

These towers will be dotted around London so that the police can make sure that you are being watched, and that you know it. Lest you forget, though, we are being offered some Olympic merchandise to remind us about everything. Here’s Olympic mascot Wenlock in his police uniform:

Absurd security around the Olympics

Even with all the security equipment the government are obviously scared of dissent. During the games there will be 13,500 troops deployed as security staff, in addition to an unknown number of police officers. MI5 has recalled 3,500 agents and cancelled holidays around the games. HMS Ocean will be moored on the Thames estuary with Royal Marines on board, and HMS Bulwark will be present for events around Weymouth. There will be Surface to Air Missiles around London ready to bring down any threatening aircraft. There will be an SAS unit nearby. So that these can all be deployed quickly to quash any naughtiness, 290 CCTV cameras have been moved from Birmingham to London.

Draconian clampdown on Olympic terms and symbols

Just what is and isn’t allowed has also been tightened up. The last government introduced a law to make all the changes for the games. The no marketing right protocol says that businesses are forbidden to associate activity with the Olympic Games. No Olympic Rings can be used in any signs or displays, the phrase “London 2012” is protected and enforced, and you can’t use “2012” either because the enforcement got a bit over-zealous. First we have the case of Cafe Olympic, a fairly generic name and innocuous enough, you would have thought. The name had to be changed. A butcher in Weymouth had to remove display of Olympic rings and the number 2012 made from sausages.

Surveillance state

In a slightly bizarre move it seems that border control at our airports and ports have access to information on people involved in the Olympics – even torch bearers. When Bryony Gordon was stopped on entry to the UK she was questioned on what she was doing at the Olympics – who knows why – because the person checking her could see that she is going to be a torch bearer.

I wouldn’t object to an Olympic games that focussed on the sport and the athletes. These Olympic games, though, are an expensive, corrupt, authoritarian farce. Are you sure that they are worth the price?

Several hundred people gathered today in front of the Ministry of Health to protest against the Health and Social Care bill and what it will do to the NHS. During the course of the protest riot police intimidated and grabbed at protesters, held them against their will, and broke up the protest into small groups that petered out. This was suppression of protest, something that I have written aboutmany times before. As yet the mainstream media outlets have been silent about the protest and about the policing of it. Read on for some images, videos and tweets from the day. For a detailed personal account with many pictures and videos please read This blog post by Cai Wingfield, and see the links at the end of this post for more.

"Outside the department of health!" - photo by @thinktyler"protest in Whitehall" - photo by @COPDdoc

Despite being completely peaceful, the protest received significant police attention within an hour. Large numbers of police vans arrived with Territorial Support Group (TSG – riot police) as well as armed police. The police surrounded the protesters, possibly with the intention of containing (kettling) them – that was certainly how it was perceived. The presence of armed police and being surrounded raised tensions among the protesters significantly.

Let me describe the atmosphere at this point, because in a second things get nasty. COMPLETELY peaceful. The crowd is sparse and moving at a fast walking pace. There is a little chanting but no aggro. The yellow-uniformed police are walking at the same pace of us, and have not (that I’ve heard) requested that we don’t march. The mood is very upbeat. People are smiling and laughing, happy to be doing something positive and perhaps get a little attention (there has been almost no media presence that we’ve seen, unless you count the Socialist Worker as media). The crowd is made up of people of all ages. There are young children and babies, medical students, young adults, up to middle-aged and some elderly people. There is a high proportion of people who have reduced mobility. I spot several people walking with sticks or crutches. I see someone in a wheelchair wearing a V mask, there with their V-masked family.

Now someone shouts something. I’m within a few people of the front of the march. Suddenly, to my right, tens of baseball cap-wearing cops stream out of concealment, running. They’ve obviously been waiting for us.

The mood of the crowd turns quickly to dismay. This is completely out of the blue. These new cops are highly organised and running quickly. They have helmets and truncheons on their belts. People are suddenly scared. There are shouts of “KETTLE! KETTLE!” and “RUN!” from those who see what’s about to happen. People start to run (including me). But it’s too late, they’re already blocking the way ahead of us.

Suddenly it’s clear something is happening. More shouting and running. A line of riot cops is forming ahead, their arms outstretched. Shouts of “KETTLE!” and “RUN!” again from the protesters. We start to run, searching for a break in the line or another way through. All around there is running and screaming, people don’t know what’s happening. I reach the first cops as they start to grab people. I think I see some people grabbed bodily and with serious force, but I don’t stop running. My arm is grasped at by a gloved hand, but I break free. Others are not so lucky, including some of those I’m at the demo with. The line is being held now, people are not being allowed to leave or enter the zone. I see passers by, elderly and disabled people kept inside the cordon. It’s about 4:14pm.

Note that the containment (“kettling”) is fairly loose; it is not the hyper-kettling favoured by the ACPO where crowds are surrounded and compressed and then held for hours as the police and horses closed in. It is people being held without charge and against their will all the same.

It seems that the police still don’t understand that modern protests are arranged through consensus and social media. They persistently try to find the leader, even though there isn’t one. (And then they often use the inability to negotiate with a leader as justification for escalating their tactics.)

Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group officer U1632 attacked an innocent and totally peaceful protestor, from behind, during a demonstration against NHS privatisation in London, today, 17 March 2012. U1632 ran up behind the young man and whacked him across the calves with a 2-foot long steel-core truncheon, causing his victim to collapse in agony on the pavement, before hauling him off to an unknown fate, out of sight, behind police lines.

I was there today. The van pulled up in front of me and three police got out with what I would identify as a machine gun but not knowing much about these things i@m not sure exactly what type of gun it was.

The protest was not at Parliament Square. It started at the dept. of health where the cenotaph is on whitehall. It moved out onto whitehall where we intended to stay, completely peacefully. A huge number of police started towards us from parliament and we broke and started moving up whitehall towards Trafalgar Square. The police were trying to kettle but the protest was keeping ahead of them. As I got to Trafalgar Square a red police van pulled up as described above.

They only stayed for a few minutes before getting back into the van but it seemed to me like they were trying to intimidate. I still can’t quite believe it. To see this at a peaceful protest in the uk is not in any way normal. I asked a police officer who was stood by the van what the reason for deployment was and he told me to ‘fucking jog on’

Some senior police I spoke to later suggested they were diplomatic police and the van was under threat but I can tell you that they came up, under no threat and made a show of getting out with the guns.

The protest had a very mixed turnout. Many older people there and a lot of disabled people. We weren’t a rabid mob threatening anyone.

It appears that the armed police may have been at the protest by accident, having simply been close by at the time. It should be noted that the armed police were from the Diplomatic Protection Group, a part of the Metropolitan Police that guards diplomatic residencies in London. DPG officers are routinely armed when deployed. Nevertheless, it is not appropriate to send armed police to a peaceful protest and it is not known why they were present.

The messages shown here were all sent out to the public through twitter today by the Metropolitan Police. All I will add to them is this:

Protest is a right stemming from freedom of speech, assembly and association. The Met are suppressing it. People do not have a right not to see anything upsetting. And most of all, human rights exist in part not to protect the popular opinions, but to protect those that are hated by society and are at risk from them.

The right to protest is an important part of our democracy. Since we have a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy, (We elect MPs to make decisions for us rather than voting on every issue) it is even more important to have the right to inform our MPs that we disagree with what they are doing and push for change to their policies. We get to vote for a representative every four or five years but we must be able to influence their policies in between elections, and sometimes writing a letter or meeting an MP is not enough. The government recognises the right to protest, and even says so on the DirectGov website:

The right to peaceful protest is a vital part of democracy, and it has a long, distinguished history in the UK.

Although protest stretches far back in to history, the right to protest is not explicitly stated in law. Instead, it is protected by the rights recognised in the human rights act. Specifically:

• Right to Peaceful Assembly – Article 11
• Right to Freedom of Expression – Article 10
• Right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion – Article 9
• Right to respect for private and family life – Article 8
(List taken from The Liberty Guide To Human Rights.)

The authorities recognise the right to protest and always claim to facilitate it, but they always include and emphasise the word “peaceful” in that phrase. Of course the laws against vandalism, violence, and other behaviour remain in place during protest so in some ways the word peaceful is redundant. The reason that word is included is to provide an excuse for curtailing the protest as soon as it is perceived to be disobedient.

A protest march from the front - but where are the protesters?

In protests in London today (09/11/2011) the police controlled the march in a number of ways.

Prohibited protesters from leaving the route of the march.

Prohibited protesters from entering certain streets.

Prohibited protesters from assembling for more than two hours at the end of the march.

Stopped and search coaches on their way to the protest, delaying some beyond the start.

Overwhelming numbers of police who were intimidating to protesters.

Surrounded the march on all sides, making it impossible to see the protesters.

Forcibly removed protesters and their tents from Trafalgar Square.

Stopped and searched people at random.

Demanded that people remove face coverings. (Why? So they can build a database of protesters?)

Snatched certain people out of the crowd and removed them from the protest.

Had undercover police in the crowd.

Held protesters in place for some time at the end with no information on why or how to leave.

Frequently blocked the protester’s way and held them up.

Intimidation of would-be protesters with talk of baton rounds and warning letters as I wrote about in my last blog post.

The first three items on this list are courtesy of section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986. The more I find out about this legislation, the more I realise how draconian and evil it is. It does not seem to add anything worth having to existing laws, instead giving the police the ability to control and bully people. Section 12 allows police to tell people where they can and can’t go, and how long they can be there. Section 14 actually allows the police to order people to stay in one place, to restrict the numbers that can protest, and tell them to go home. Section 60 allows the police to stop and search whoever they like, without reason. Section 60AA allows them to order people to remove any clothing that might conceal their identity. This includes scarves, even if it is freezing cold. And for what purpose? The police would get a persons identity if they arrested them for a crime so the only reason to reveal it can be to gather details of who is protesting. Again, treating protest as a crime.

I will give some credit to the police; there was, as far as I know, no prolonged containment and no batons used. The march seemed (from my perspective via TV and Twitter) to be largely peaceful. This may in part be to the sheer numbers of police on the streets though. I know that some people would criticise the police if they did not have so many officers out but I believe this quantity of police to be overwhelming and intimidating. I have said before and will say again that if the police simply left people alone then that would remove the cause of most of the violence at previous protests. Yes, there might have been some vandalism, however police should target vandals if and when they do something wrong.

Medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides said “It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.” If this is applied to protest, it is better to let a hundred vandals go free than to stamp on the right to protest of ten thousand. Police should leave protesters alone and stop trying to control them.

Government and police hate protest. Protests are inconvenient. Protests tell them that they are wrong. Protests can attract attention and tell other people that the government is wrong. And so the right to protest appears to be under attack by the police and the government. The authorities recognise the right to protest and always claim to facilitate it, it even says so on the DirectGov website:

The right to peaceful protest is a vital part of democracy, and it has a long, distinguished history in the UK.

However they always include and emphasise the word “peaceful” with that phrase. Of course the laws against vandalism, violence, and other behaviour remain in place during protest so in some ways the word peaceful is redundant. It is often the idea that a protest has not been peaceful that is used to justify clamping down on the protest. The police have a number of laws at their disposal to minimise or prevent protest.

Section 14 of the 1986 public order act gives police the power to order protesters to confine their protest to a certain place, keep the numbers down, and tell them when to stop.

Section 60 and 60AA of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 allow the police to stop and search anyone in the specified area with no reason necessary, and to demand that people in the area remove all face coverings so that they can be identified.

Breach of the peace is a commonly quoted law. Not actually a criminal offence, it still allows a police officer to threaten someone with arrest unless they leave. I believe that the police use this at far too low a threshold since it must be “conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community.” and “something substantially greater than mere irritation is involved, what is required… is conduct which does present as genuinely alarming and disturbing, in its context, to any reasonable person.” (Smith v Donnelly 2001 SCCR 800)

Recently the police have charged people with Aggravated Trespass – a law intended to be used against raves – to place more restrictions on where a protest can take place.

Dispersal Orders may be put in place, creating a Dispersal Zone in which a police officer may order a person to leave the area with no reason necessary.

In addition to these laws, governments in the last fifteen years have placed more restrictions on being allowed to protest at all. The law now requires organisers to apply for a permit six days before any protest march. Any protest at all near the houses of parliament now requires a permit from the police, again, six days in advance. Permission may be requested one day in advance if six days is not reasonably practicable. Quoting from DirectGov again:

If you are organising a march, you are legally required to notify the police six days in advance, or as soon as it is reasonably practical to do so. If you are organising a protest rally that will not involve a march, you are not obliged to notify the police, but you may still want to let them know.

Police always insist on agreeing in advance the route that a protest march will take. They talk to organisers or representatives of the protest to find out the proposed route, often imposing changes on it, and then any protesters leaving the route are used to justify clamping down on the protest. This is especially problematic in protests where there are no central organisers or where many additional groups have joined the protest but do not accept that any people represent them when talking to the police.

The normal response to protesters not doing exactly what the police want is containment. Containment, or kettling, involves enclosing the crowd with lines of police officers, vans, horses, buildings or barriers, and holding them there for hours. Often the police attempt to close in on the crowd and crush them. It is quite deliberate and police can be seen pushing in towards the crowd in a very deliberate and organised way in various videos taken from previous protests. When the people are treated like this it is almost a certainty that they will get angry with the police and people at the edge will be pushed towards the police by those being crushed in the middle. The police response is to hit people and scream at them to get back and so it should be obvious that containment will only ever cause and inflame violence, mostly starting on the police side.

The purpose of containment, apart from keeping protesters away from other people, appears to be to destroy people’s will to protest. The containment usually only ends when people are tired, hungry, cold, and prepared to submit to being photographed and giving their details to the police. It is arguable that this is a deliberate deterrent against protesting in future. People fighting in court the use of containment have argued that it is a form of collective punishment. That is, it unfairly punishes all who are at the scene instead of just those that may have been causing trouble. Many other people are also intimidated by the threat of containment and put off of attending protest by it.

The collection of photographs and identities seems to be another intimidation tactic. Forward Intelligence Teams video and photograph people at just about every protest. It seems to be routine now for police to gather names and addresses from any protesters that have been caught up in containment, threatening arrest if the person is not cooperative and even arresting and then de-arresting in order to circumvent the law and get details. I believe that this is intimidation by the police. They build up a database of people who have attended protests and this can only be for use in identifying people at future protests – the idea that attending lots of protests makes a person a trouble maker – and the implication is that attending protests is a crime when it is not.

Apart from intimidating people out of protest, people can also be prevented from protesting by the courts. People who have been arrested at Fortnum & Mason and at Dale Farm but not convicted of anything have been banned in their bail conditions from the City of London and from Essex respectively. People who were arrested ahead of the Royal Wedding were also banned from London even though they had not even done anything to justify arrest. In September three activists were arrested for suspending a banner from a bridge in Birmingham while protesting at the Liberal Democrat conference. Two of those arrested were released on bail, (and banned from Birmingham) but the third was held in custody for ten days because he had previously been arrested at the Fortnum & Mason protest. He has not been found guilty of anything at that protest, and yet because of it he spent ten days in prison while not being found guilty of anything at the latter protest. This is definitely intimidating to potential protesters.

As if that isn’t enough, many people who had previously been arrested at Fortnum & Mason and at Dale Farm received letters from the Metropolitan Police warning them not to commit criminal or anti-social behaviour, to move away from any violence, and stating that they could be arrested at the earliest opportunity should this advice be ignored. I believe this to also be intimidation designed to keep protesters away from protests – both those who received the letters and others that saw them.

Now ahead of several protests on Wednesday the 9th, Commander Simon Pountain of the Met police – who is in charge of policing during the protests – has given several interviews and in each has explicitly mentioned baton rounds. (Also known as plastic bullets.) He has stated that he will have units armed with baton rounds parked nearby and on standby to be used in policing the protests, and that he wanted them on standby so that he would not have to wait an hour or two for them to be deployed. He expressed a willingness to use them in certain situations which do not seem so unlikely. This is yet more intimidation by the police. Both their announcement that baton rounds will be on standby and the mere fact that Pountain talked about them to several journalists is very worrying and will intimidate and put off yet more protesters.

Taken as a whole, I believe that all of this shows that the police have far over-stepped their boundaries and are illegally curtailing the right to protest. Governments both Conservative and Labour have introduced authoritarian laws that also overstep the mark. This intimidation cannot be allowed to stop protest. Governments and police are not supposed to like protest, it is designed to make them uncomfortable so that they change their policies. Obviously it is working.